


A Silent Man's Words

by WolfVenom



Series: R6S Drabbles [6]
Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Character Death, Goodbyes, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Loneliness, Military, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 06:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfVenom/pseuds/WolfVenom
Summary: From an AU request on Tumblr.





	A Silent Man's Words

Her shoulder ached tremendously, yet she did not falter in step nor grip. Blackbeard was to her left, holding their cargo with a white-knuckled grip and other stronger members helping them behind. She could not find it in her to even spare them recognition. Valkyrie sniffed loudly behind her, shifting her grip, and Dokkaebi wished she was brave enough to weep alongside them all.

 

Six stood at a podium, head high and eyes wet, and the six operators heaving along the flag-covered casket did not look up. Thatcher bit his knuckles from his seat near the center stage, obviously distraught and a thousand emotions flitting through those old, old eyes. Eyes that have seen war and death and destruction but never something like _this_.

 

With a final heave, Dokkaebi urged the others to set down the box, leading in lowering down the head first, brushing fingertips only briefly with Craig, who noticed naught, and simply walked back and stood at ease next to a line of recruits.

 

Valkyrie followed suit, letting a tear run free without hiding it, and flanked Blackbeard to his right, whence Montagne, Tachanka, and Smoke parted with a final well times salute and took leave to Thatcher’s side, settling themselves down and staring mindlessly at the firing squad behind Six. 

 

_“Hey, Grace. You wouldn’t mind taking care of things for me, right? Could you look after yourself? Will you be alright without me? I’d hate to see you fall now because of my stupid mistake. You can keep my stuff; the mask, the tags, the ERC-7. Make sure nothing bad happens to those, I spent a long time taking care of them. Now it’s your duty, and I hope you do it as well as you do everything else. I know this must be hard on you-- on Craig, on everyone-- but the last thing I would want from any of you is to weep over some glitch on the camera, haha. It’s been awhile since I’ve laughed. It sure does feel weird, but maybe that’s just the head wound. I can’t even remember the last time… I only wished that I stuck around long enough to make some memories with you and the others, learned to laugh again, maybe gotten drunk some time and tried those American gambling games, you know how it is. But there is no bucket list once you’ve kicked it, right?_

_I’ve always been proud of your skills. Of your personality, and that fire in your eyes; jealous, even. You were so open and ambitious in your goals, and it was something that I both feared and admired you for. A bitter resentment born from my lack of such things._

_You never cried before, at least not when anyone was looking. It’s okay to let it out this time. These people are your family, your brothers and sisters and they are with your for the long haul. Where you bleed, they bleed, where you cry, they cry. Remember that mother we found in Istanbul? She died protecting her baby from the terrorists and you just scooped him up and entertained him all the way back to England. Of course, you tried to show him how to successfully hack into a CIA mainframe in the span it took for professionals to take care of the kid, but seeing a young life and watching you feed the growing minds of the world had something in me yearn for the same. To have been loved, to have been taught, to have been a child. And to give those things to others, as well._

_It’s probably the blood loss talking now. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken this long into a dead comm channel, hah. How out of character of me._

_Of course, I should probably let some sort of official know these next details before I can’t wake up anymore…_

_My name is Chul Kyung Hwa, callsign Vigil, and I’ve been gunned down on a solo intel mission in Serbia. My transmissions are shot and this message is being recorded and stored on our private server. All of my belongings are entitled to operator Dokkaebi and the 707th SMB CTU division, with possession of my books going to operator Blackbeard of the Navy Seals._

_I just realized I really don’t want to go… But time waits for no man…”_  

 

 

Six cleared her throat and began her speech, hailing the soldiers and civilians who made time to attend the funeral. Dokkaebi paid no mind to any of the words, all of them blurring and fading in place of that monotone drawl over the comm static, the seldom cough and continuous wheeze of breath.

 

She heard his pain, listened to him talk through it like he never spoke before. A child who just learned how to speak relishing in the openness of words and articulating thought.

 

The silver of the dog tags glinted from the chain around her neck, four in total, and the mask in her hands soaked up the sunlight from above, heated and warm. Her glasses fogged up with hot breaths and stinging tears, so she bit back a wail and gently settled the mask on top of the Korean flag, right beside the plethora of bouquets and tributes placed by others.

_(Art by @kajimi_scribbles)_

 

Her palm brushed the material, caressed the flag and straightened it over the corners of the coffin. No one but her accessed his full request. She had pulled the file from records and saved it to her personal drive, then resent his verbal will only back to the higher-ups without a trace he had even said anything more. 

 

It played on repeat in her head. She felt the ghost of his hand on her shoulder and the ruffle in her hair and the way he tugged her beanie over her eyes to be annoying, and suddenly she now yearned deeply for the little things that had so bugged her before. 

 

_‘I don’t want to go…’_

 

 

 

 

And he shouldn’t of.

 

  
_(Art by @danktapushunteroppa)_


End file.
